I've entitled this message from
Galatians 2, That the Gospel Might Continue. That the Gospel
Might Continue. I took that title from verse
5. And the Apostle Paul has, in writing to the churches of
Galatia who had been under attack from false preachers, what we
normally call Judaizers, which means they were Jews who claimed
to be Christian, but who in their doctrine denied the true faith
because they wanted to add circumcision and the keeping of the Law of
Moses as to attaining or maintaining salvation, as to making a person
righteous before God. Paul is writing to expose them
and to give the believers, the true believers of Galatia, the
ammunition they need, the truth that they need to combat such
false doctrine that Satan uses to attack the church, and to
call them back to repentance in this area. And so what he's
doing here in this passage, in this part of the letter, is defending
himself, defending his own apostleship, because these Judaizers had attacked
Paul's authority. And they said that Paul didn't
have any authority to say the things that he said. That Paul
was not a true apostle. But Paul says that he was, and
so he relates a little bit of his history here. He talks about
his own conversion, when it pleased the Lord to reveal his son in
me. That's referring to his experience
on the Damascus Road when the Lord Jesus Christ revealed himself
to Paul. Saul of Tarsus, you remember,
we talked about that last week. And he speaks a lot about his
authority. What is my authority, for example,
as a preacher of the gospel? It has nothing to do with any
credentials that I have. It has nothing to do with who
I am. It only has to do with do I preach
or speak the Word of God. Can I back up what I tell you
with the Scriptures? And that's one thing I always
tell people about our church, that we are a back to the Scriptures
fellowship, that we want to study the Word. We don't want men's
opinions and ideas and philosophies. We want to know, thus saith the
Lord. That's how the prophets, whenever they had a message for
Israel, that's how they began, thus saith the Lord God. It wasn't
this is what Isaiah thinks, or what Jeremiah thinks, or what
Elijah thinks, thus saith the Lord. And so the Apostle Paul
brings to the forefront here, number one, his calling and authority,
and then number two, the ground of fellowship with anybody, even
those who seem to be of reputation. And that ground of fellowship
and that authority is the gospel. And look at what he says, the
first thing he talks about here is seeking the fellowship of
truth and faith. He says in verse 1 of chapter
2, he says, then 14 years after I went up again to Jerusalem
with Barnabas, and took Titus with me also. This is probably
14 years after he was converted. 14 years after his Damascus road
experience. And up until that time, now the
Apostle, you know, he wasn't dormant. Now, chapter 1 told
us that he was, he went into Arabia for three years, and you
know, I've always heard, you know, when men are claimed to
be called to the ministry, After they get an undergraduate degree,
they go to seminary, they say. And a seminary degree, what they
call a Master of Divinity, which on the whole is a big joke, but
they say it takes you three years to do that. And that's what I
know when I was at Southern Seminary, that's what the three years,
you know. And some people say that's based on this, Paul going
three years into the desert. I don't know if that's true or
not, but either way, it doesn't matter whether it's three years
or 33 years, the key to the whole issue is truth. the gospel of
the way God saves sinners by his free and sovereign grace
through the Lord Jesus Christ. But Paul, he wasn't Norman, he'd
gone there for three years, but he also went about preaching
to the Gentile nations around the area. And so he says, after
14 years I went up to Jerusalem and And he took a man named Barnabas,
you know who Barnabas was, you can read about him in the book
of Acts, the son of consolation they called him. Apparently he
had a gift of consoling people, or maybe bringing people together.
And he took Titus with me also. Titus was a Greek, he was a Gentile. verse 2 says, and I went up by
revelation. That means that he went there
because he was inspired and it was revealed to him personally
by the Holy Spirit that that's where he was to go. And then
he says, look what he did now. He says, I went by revelation
and communicated unto them that gospel which I preach among the
Gentiles. I'm telling you what I preach.
You see, this is what's at the forefront here. It's not who
you are, who you were, who you plan to be. It's not your personality. I mean, we ought to pray that
the Lord will give us pleasant personalities and all of that,
but that's not the ground of fellowship here. I want to tell
you what I preach. I preach the gospel, the good
news of how God justifies the ungodly. And that's the issue. That's the issue among these
Judaizers. How does God Almighty, who's
holy and just and righteous, how does that God, how does He
save sinners? How does He make a sinner righteous
before Him? How does he forgive sin? That's
the issue. What is the ground of your salvation?
What is your hope? What do you claim? That's the
issue. So I'm going to communicate,
Paul said, the gospel that I preach among the Gentiles. So he went
to Jerusalem to tell them. Now this is what I'm preaching.
Now what's Paul doing here? He's seeking fellowship, and
we ought to seek fellowship. We ought not just reject everybody
out of hand and go it alone, because we're creatures who need
fellowship. Even when God brings us to a
saving knowledge of Christ, I believe that He actually puts a desire
in us for fellowship. But that fellowship has to be
based on something substantial and real. And it has to be based
on the truth. It has to be based on the gospel.
So I communicated the gospel. What gospel do you believe? I
want to know if I'm in fellowship with you. I want to know if there's
a brotherhood or a sisterhood here. There's a binding see now
you remember in 2nd John verse 9 how he talked about though
he's he talked about those who transgressed they went too far
and did not abide in the truth of Christ in the doctrine of
Christ and he said they have not God and those who abide in
the doctrine of Christ the doctrine of his person the doctrine of
his redemptive work and The very righteousness of God revealed
in the gospel. He said, they have the Father
and the Spirit. And he said, if any come to you
and bring not this doctrine, then don't bid them Godspeed.
Don't support them. That's what he's talking about.
You're not in fellowship with them. So this is what Paul's
doing here. And he says in verse 2, but privily,
he says, or privately, you might have in your accordance the word
severally. In other words, he went, I think
what this means is not that he was trying to hide it, but that
he went, whoever he's talking about, he went to them individually.
He says, but privily to them that were of reputation. That's
those who had a reputation as being children of God, preachers
of the gospel, or even apostles. And he mentions Peter and James
and John later on. He said, I went to them individually
lest by any means I should run or had run in vain. Now what
does he mean run in vain? Well, he's seeking fellowship.
And I don't know what Paul knew about Peter and James and John
and the other apostles. I'm sure, you know, somebody
said, well, Paul had to hear Peter preach at Pentecost. Well,
I don't know that for sure. The scripture didn't say. We
know he heard Stephen, don't we? But I don't know what he
knew about them, but he went to these men seeking fellowship
based on the gospel. Now, the second thing he brings
forth here is this. No matter who they were or are,
no matter who you run into, there's to be no compromise of this gospel. He wouldn't compromise it for
Peter, for James, for John, and thank God he didn't have to for
them. But look what happens. Look at verse 3. He says, but
neither Titus, who was with me, being a Greek, was compelled
to be circumcised. Now that was a, somebody said
it was a pretty bold move for Paul to even take Titus with
him. But he knew what the issue was. He knew it. He knew that this issue came
down to how God saves sinners, how God makes sinners righteous
before Him. And these Jews were saying, these
false brethren, they were saying it was by circumcision and by
keeping the law of Moses. In other words, it's the old
argument of salvation conditioned on who? Conditioned on Christ
and Him alone or conditioned on the sinner? So he said, neither
Titus, who was with me, being a Greek, was compelled to be
circumcised. Well, who was trying to compel him to be circumcised?
Look at verse 4. He says, and that because of false brethren,
unawares, brought in. They came in privily to spy out
our liberty, which we have in Christ Jesus, that they might
bring us into bondage. Now, what was that bondage? Well,
we talked about that. Bondage is legalism. Bondage
is any notion or idea of salvation in any way, to any degree, at
any time, conditioned on the sinner. If your righteousness,
the righteousness that you plead before God, if it has anything
to do with you, what you do, what you don't do, instead of
totally what Christ accomplished on Calvary, His righteousness
imputed, That's legalism, and you can put it in that category.
I don't care what it is. If it's baptism, somebody says,
well, you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, but you've got
to be baptized to be saved. Well, that's legalism. That's
denying the righteousness of God freely imputed and received
by faith. That's denying Christ. You see,
the New Testament ordinances are not ways that sinners attain
or even apply or empower or maintain salvation. There's only one way
of that, and that's Jesus Christ and Him crucified, the risen
Christ. The New Testament ordinances
are ways of confessing and expressing our faith in Him. That's what
they are. They are keeping His commandments, but we're not saved
by keeping His commandments. We keep His commandments because
we are saved. That's the difference. One's
legalism, the other's grace. And so these false brethren came
in. The whole issue here in verse
4 is that they sneaked in. Now that means this. They claimed
to be Christians. But they wanted to keep their
Jewish rights and laws as forming some part of the ground of their
salvation and righteousness before God. Now Paul had clearly set
forth the true, the pure gospel of salvation that Almighty God
freely and fully provides for his people through the Lord Jesus
Christ and based on his righteousness imputed. and received by God-given
faith. And so here we find these Judaizing
teachers from the city of Jerusalem. And you know, that meant something
back then. We're from Jerusalem. We're Jews. We're the people
of God. I'm going to talk about that in the message this morning. Who are the true people of God?
Who is true Israel? And so here they come from Jerusalem. They claim they had connections
with the apostles. We've talked to Peter. We've
talked to James. We've talked to John. They came
into these churches and they said to these believers that
they had not heard the whole gospel from Paul. Paul hadn't
taught you the whole thing. There's something to be added.
Yes, Paul told you that you've got to believe in Christ, and
we agree with that, but Paul has not told you that you've
got to be circumcised. Go back to the Old Testament,
which at that time was the only scriptures they had. Go back
there, didn't he command Abraham to be circumcised, and to circumcise
his children as a sign of that covenant with Abraham? And so
you've got to do that, and you've got to keep the Law of Moses
to have any real hope of salvation, any real righteousness before
God. And of course you remember what Paul wrote in Galatians
2 and verse 21, if righteousness comes that way, if it comes by
the law, then Christ died in vain. That is a blanket statement
that Christ died for nothing, if that's what you believe. And
it has to do with anything that comes from or of the sinner. So Paul says, now that's heresy.
He says that's another gospel of a different kind. That's not
the gospel of God's grace. And it doesn't matter if it comes
from men who are Jews or come from Jerusalem who claim to have
a connection with the apostles. It doesn't matter if they're
men of reputation. It doesn't matter if they have
great personalities. It doesn't matter if they're
magnets and can draw people like nobody else can. What matters
is this, do they preach God's gospel? Do they have the gospel
right? You know, whenever false preachers
attempt to promote and spread their false gospel, and here's
the thing about it too. Now, you've got to understand
these false preachers, they themselves are deceived now. They're not,
you know, they don't have fangs and horns, you know, and they
don't get together and say, now let's get in here and deceive
these people. Now Satan does that, but he does it through
the deception of his ministers. They really believe they're telling
the truth here, just like false preachers in our day. They believe
they're telling the truth. They don't sit down in their
studies this week and say, now what lies can I tell the people?
They're deceived and they're deceivers. But whenever they
attempt to promote and spread their false gospel, They always
go after the one who's preaching the truth. Many times they won't
even go after the truth or even talk about the doctrine, they'll
go after his character. And that's what they're doing
here. But what Paul is saying here is that he as a preacher
of the truth and we who are people of the truth, members of the
church of the living God, we're to tell the truth no matter how
it offends or who it offends. Now, we're to tell the truth
in love, Scripture says, love indeed in truth, speak the truth
in love. But this love that God commands will not dishonor Him,
it will not deny Christ, and it will not promote unbelievers
in a lie. And again now, it's important
to know that these Judaizers, they didn't, listen, they didn't
deny the basic historical facts of the Gospel. They agreed that
Jesus was the Christ, the Son of God. They agreed, they claimed
to believe in the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. I
preached a message on 1 Corinthians 15 about the death, burial, and
resurrection of Christ, and I made this statement. I said, now those
are historical facts. Jesus Christ, Jesus of Nazareth,
He was born, He lived, He died, He was buried, He arose from
the dead. Those are historical facts. But
I made this statement, I said those historical facts in and
of themselves are not the Gospel. Now, those historical facts are
part of the Gospel, and you can't preach the Gospel without preaching
them. But just in and of themselves, they're not the Gospel. These
false Judaizers, these false preachers, they believe that
Jesus died, was buried, and rose again, but their Gospel was a
false Gospel. You see, the issue of the Gospel
is not just that He died, just that He was buried, not just
that He arose the third day. The issue of the Gospel is why
did He do all that, and what did He accomplish through all
that? What did Jesus Christ accomplish
on the cross? And every false gospel in some
form or fashion comes along and says that His death, burial,
and resurrection only made you savable or made salvation a possibility
if you'll do certain things to cooperate. In this case, it was
be circumcised and keep the Law of Moses. What is it today? Believe and repent. And sadly,
people don't know what to believe, and repentance has just come
to mean feeling sorry or ashamed of your sins, and that's not
even what repentance means. There's all kinds of people who
feel sorry and ashamed of their sins who haven't repented. We'll be talking about repentance
in the next message a little bit, but repentance is a change
of mind concerning the truths of the gospel, who God is, who
Jesus Christ is, who I am, and how God saves me, and what does
it take to save a sinner like me? Where righteousness comes from,
that's the issue of repentance. How am I made righteous? Did
Christ actually by His death which is His righteousness, did
He actually accomplish the complete salvation of His people? Did
He secure their salvation unto final glory, including the work
of the Holy Spirit within us in the new birth? Or did He simply
make it possible for us to be saved if we'd meet certain conditions,
like being circumcised, or keeping the law, or being baptized, or
walking an aisle? How is a sinner made righteous
before God? Well, most today would say it's
by believing. And though it's true that we lay hold of Christ
and submit to His righteousness in believing on Him, we are not
made righteous by our believing. That's just as bad as saying
we're made righteous by circumcision. We're made righteous by the cross.
That's how a sinner is made righteous. That's how our sins are washed
away. That's how we're forgiven. The Bible says Christ by himself,
what? Purged our sins. Some people,
they talk about purgatory. That's what, you know where the
word purgatory, purged. What's the purging? That's the putting
away, the burning away, the washing away of sins. Well, there is
a purgatory. It was the cross of the Lord
Jesus Christ and he purged our sins. It's what the scripture
teaches. And so he says in verse 5, look
at verse 5, he says, now these who came in, now he's seeking
fellowship based on the gospel. He says, secondly, we cannot
compromise it. Look at verse 5, to whom we gave
place by subjection, no, not for an hour. I didn't give them
an hour, he said. Now why? Because here's the issue,
that the truth of the gospel might continue with you. If we lose the gospel message
of God's grace, we lose everything. If it's compromised, and I don't
care who does it, I don't care what reputation they are, When
the person and finished work of Christ is challenged, what
do you have to do? You have to do exactly what you
all did. You have to stand up and say,
no, I'm not gonna tolerate it. Will men of reputation stand
against you? Yes, and they did. And deceived
a lot of people. But you have to do exactly, and
you know that that takes the grace of God. Well thirdly, he
speaks of fellowship founded on the gospel. Now look at verse
six, he says, but of these who seem to be somewhat, that is
a reputation. And he says, whatsoever they
worry, it maketh no matter to me. God accepteth no man's person. For they who seem to be somewhat
in conference added nothing to me. Now listen, now Paul, that's
not a statement of arrogance or meanness or anything like
that. I mean, I want you to think about
it. We ought to be friendly. We ought to be kind. We ought
to be charitable. We even ought to be respectful
of people. But here's the point he's making.
Look, there's no fellowship, there's no spiritual brotherhood
in the kingdom of God apart from the truth as it is in Christ. These who seem to be somewhat,
those of reputation, those who considered important, esteemed
by others in the church. He says, they added nothing to
me. Now what he means by that is this, now he wants their fellowship,
he wants fellowship with Peter and James and John. He wants
fellowship with anybody, any believer. But their reputation
and their esteem did not add anything to Paul's message or
truth or his calling and authority as an apostle. Didn't add anything to that.
We have to understand, and I'll put it to you this way, that
we really add nothing to the kingdom of God. Now, you think
about it. I'm talking about as far as quality
or victory. I know that when God brings his
sheep into the fold, when Christ calls his sheep into the fold,
there's more joy in heaven over one sinner that's brought to
repentance and over 99 who need no repentance. And especially
when you consider that there's really no 99 that need no repentance
among men. He's just making a point of how
great and glorious it is, the salvation of a sinner. What is
that for? Is it because, you know, I don't
know, I probably may use this example. You know, back in the
70s, there was a false preacher from New Orleans named Bob Harrington. And he had a 10 most wanted list.
And he had a list of celebrities whom he just knew, if God saved
them, that that would change the whole complexion of the church.
One of them was Muhammad Ali. Another one was Phil Donahue.
And I think that's because he always got on the Phil Donahue
show. I don't know if you all remember Phil Donahue. Well,
listen. Well, you know, whether God saves
Muhammad Ali or Joe Blow from Kokomo, it doesn't matter. It's
the glory of God. That's not going to change the
complexion of the church, or it's not going to make the church
more powerful. You see? And that's what Paul's
saying, they added nothing to me. Now, why does he say that? Well, he's got it in parenthesis
there. He says, Whatsoever they were, it maketh no matter to
me, because God accepteth no man's person. What he's saying
here is that when it comes to a right relationship with God,
it has nothing to do with your person, who you are, what you've
done. It all has to do with the glory
of God in Christ. God accepteth no man's person.
That's a lesson we all have to learn. Hard lesson. First of all, we're all by nature
a respecter of ourselves. Just like the fella told the
preacher one time, he said, I know I'm not perfect, but he said,
I've never done anything to deserve help. Preacher said, you don't
know yourself. You're a respecter of persons. Somebody said, well, not my family,
not my relatives, not my loved ones. That's a respecter of persons. It's a hard lesson, isn't it?
We all love to cling to men of reputation. By nature, men want
to ride into heaven on the coattails of some famous preacher or somebody
like that. But God's no respecter of persons.
Peter had to learn it. Remember in Acts chapter 10 when
God sent him to preach to a Gentile named Cornelius? Peter said in
Acts 10, 34, of a truth I've learned that God is no respecter
of persons. That was a concept that was given
to Israel early on. Deuteronomy 10, 17, for the Lord
your God is a God of gods and the Lord of lords, a great God,
a mighty and a terrible, which regardeth not persons nor taketh
reward. And that means you don't earn
anything from him. Romans 2, Paul wrote, God judges
according to truth. He says, there's no respect of
persons with God. James wrote, but if you have
respect of persons, you commit sin and are convinced of the
law is transgressor. To have respect of persons is
committing sin. Remember what Peter wrote in
1 Peter 1.17, listen to this, he says, "'If you call on the
Father, who without respect of persons judgeth according to
every man's work, pass the time of your sojourning here in fear.'"
Now, what does he mean judges according to every man's work?
Again, any time you see that in the context of the Gospel
of Grace it's not what our works do for us, or earn for us, it's
what our works say about us. And immediately right after that
what did Peter say? "'For as much as you know you
are not redeemed with corruptible things.'" It's silver and gold.
the vain tradition of your fathers, you're redeemed with the precious
blood of Christ." You know, respect of men's persons
shows either a total lack of God's grace and salvation or
at least a very weak understanding of it, but He'll teach His people.
But look what He says, look at verse 7, He says, But contrarywise,
when they saw that the gospel of the uncircumcision was committed
unto Me, now the uncircumcision was a way of referring to Gentiles
generally. Paul had a special calling. Paul preached to anybody who'd
listened, Jew or Gentile, but his special calling and the avenues
of ministry that were opened up to him especially were to
the Gentiles, more so than any other apostle. Paul preached
to Gentiles in Corinth, in Galatia, in Philippi. He also preached
to Jews there. In fact, usually when he went
into those cities, the first place he went was to the synagogue
the gospel. But he said, the gospel of the
circumcision was committed unto me, as the gospel of the circumcision,
that's the Jews, national Jews, was unto Peter. Now Peter preached
to Gentiles too. We know in Acts chapter 10 he
preached to Cornelius who was a Gentile, but his special calling
was to preach to the Jews. In verse 8 he says, For he that
wrought or worked effectually in Peter to the apostleship of
the circumcision, the same was mighty in me toward the Gentiles.
Notice, same God who saves without respect to persons, Jew and Gentile,
by His grace based on the righteousness of Christ. In verse 9 he says, And when
James and Cephas, Cephas is Peter's Greek name, And John, who seemed
to be pillars, they were pillars of the church. These were men
whom God raised up to establish the New Testament church. That's what he's saying. They
perceived the grace that was given unto me, that they gave
to me. And Barnabas, then they extended the right hands of fellowship.
He says that we should go unto the heathen and they into the
circumcision. Heathen, another way of referring to Gentiles
generally. Now, when he's talking about Peter's message to the
Jews, Paul's message to the Gentiles, understand he's not talking about
two different gospels here, but two different nations, two different
cultures. You know, Paul wrote one time,
he said, if I'm preaching to the Jews, I become as a Jew.
If I'm preaching to the Gentiles, I become as a Gentile. What did
he mean by that? He's not saying when in Rome do as the Romans
do. He's not saying compromise the message, but he had different
ways of delivering. And I'll give you an example
of what I'm talking about. If he would have gone into a Gentile
city at this time and started quoting from the Old Testament
and talking about Abraham or Moses, they would have known
what he's talking about. Who's Abraham? Who's Moses? Because
they weren't familiar with that. So Paul didn't begin there. An
example of that is Acts 17, when he went to Mars Hill. How did
he begin? He began with God as Creator. And he didn't even mention Moses
or any of the Old Testament. He preached unto Gentiles. But
it's the same Gospel message. God's going to judge the world
in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained, and that
he hath given assurance unto all men, and that he hath raised
him from the dead. Christ crucified. Righteousness
of God in Christ. But he did it in a different
way. Now, when he went to the Jews, he talked about Abraham. He talked about Moses. He talked
about David. Your scriptures, you know. That's
what he meant by that. But it's the same gospel, two
different areas of ministry, you see. But did you notice there
in verse 9, He said, when James, Cephas, and John perceived the
grace that was given, they perceived it. Now how did they perceive
it? Somebody told me one time, said,
I can tell that fellow's a preacher. I can see it in his eyes. I'd say he's probably just on
a bender or something, you know. You can't see it in his eyes.
That's not the way it is. You don't perceive it by looking
at their face or their outward appearance. Scripture says we're
not wise to judge by outward appearance in any way, shape,
form, or fashion. How did they perceive it? I'll
tell you how they perceived it. By the gospel that he preached.
is by the doctrine of Christ. That's how you perceive it. His
love for it, His non-compromising stance of it, which is only by
the grace of God. You can't see it in my eyes,
but I hope you perceive it by what I'm preaching, because that's
what it's all about. And then he says in verse 10,
he says, only they would that we should remember the poor,
the same which I also was forward to do. I believe what they're
talking about there is what was settled in the book of Acts chapter
15 when When Peter and James reminded
Paul and the other, the ones who were with him, who went out
to the Gentile nation, to remember the poor believers in Jerusalem
who were suffering over the gospel, because that was a very, very
difficult time to be a believer, a true follower of Jesus Christ
in Jerusalem and in Israel. You remember how Saul himself
made havoc of the church and how they were scattered throughout.
And of course, we know God overruled that evil, the evil of men to
get the gospel out over the world. And we as Gentiles can thank
God for that every day. But they said, just remember,
remember your brethren here in Jerusalem who are poor. They
lost their jobs and their ways of support because of what they
believed. And he just said, remember them.
All right.